Are my times good?

NotAPlane wrote:

Hey, so this is my first time posting, but anyways, I'm a high school athlete who's currently entering the sophomore year, and i recently found out that i would not be able to play football this year. So, I decided that i would do cross country. The reason for this back story is because im in good shape, however should i bother with cross country, because my mile time is 6:30. And my 1.5 mile time is 10:15(sorry, i don't have any distance higher than that), and how do these times compare to other sophomore runners?

You don't need to be fast to start cross country. Most people aren't when they first start. If you want to become a fast runner, just be consistent and smart with training. Log lots of miles. Now, a 6:30 would be slower than most high school sophomore mile times (I'd say a decent time for 10th graders is about 5:10 to 5:40). Talent isn't instant. I encourage you to do cross country and track regardless of how fast you are, since it's a great experience and you have lots of time to develop into a very fast runner. I had a teammate during freshman year who would run a 23 minute 5K, and by junior year, he was running 18:30. So go for it!

NotAPlane wrote:

Hey, so this is my first time posting, but anyways, I'm a high school athlete who's currently entering the sophomore year, and i recently found out that i would not be able to play football this year. So, I decided that i would do cross country. The reason for this back story is because im in good shape, however should i bother with cross country, because my mile time is 6:30. And my 1.5 mile time is 10:15(sorry, i don't have any distance higher than that), and how do these times compare to other sophomore runners?

You shouldn't compare yourself to other 10th graders. You should call yourself a 1st year runner. Before I started running, I ran a 7:50 or so mile. Within 6 weeks I ran 6:30.

You'll drop a lot of time early on. But to be honest, an average sophomore time for a dedicated runner is 4:40-5:00, perhaps faster. But don't worry, since most people have been running for a year or more already, so they have a head start. Just do what your coach says for the time being and you'll improve a lot.

There is usually a pretty wide-range of times for HS CC. You're not going to be leading the pack, but if you enjoy running you should definitely give it a shot. Just remember that you're new, follow the plan, and focus on your own times rather than being too worried about where you're currently placing.

[quote]alabama runner wrote:

You'll drop a lot of time early on. But to be honest, an average sophomore time for a dedicated runner is 4:40-5:00, perhaps faster./quote]

Very big range there; 4:40 as a sophomore is significantly above average.

NotAPlane, you'll improve quickly, especially if your school has a good XC program. Going from not running regularly --> running daily will lead to improvement early on, and you'll probably be running a minute (or more) faster in the mile come the spring.

Alabama Runner also makes >= $250,000/year and his wife is a model.

Train hard and have fun. To me that's the point of high school XC. Do not listen to some posters here that that claim it is easy and requires no talent to run a 4:45 or whatever in high school. They are either trolling, forget that they are in the upper echelon of natural ability, or have different definitions of average. (Once when challenged a poster claimed they meant average for championship meets, which obviously is very different)

6:30 for a high schooler in reasonable shape but with no specific running training seems about average. How much you can improve depends on lot on your training effort and how well your genetics respond to increased training. I would guess that with a bit of training you would be sub 20:00 in XC without too much difficulty and while not fast, that would probably only put you a little behind the middle of the pack. And you would likely just get faster from there.

Regardless, some of my best friends on my high school XC team struggled to break 23:00 and we loved having them on the team. There is more to high school sports than just being a top athlete.

Great point. @OP I also had a similar case where a friend of mine went from a 22:x to a 17:50 by the end of freshman year.

I went to a pretty competitive high school, and some years we didn't have 7 girls that could 17:00 in the 4k. If you don't make varsity Junior year, you will for sure Senior year.